Outbound contact centers may originate telephone calls to targeted parties for various purposes. The calls may be made in conjunction with surveying individuals for a political campaign, notifying customers of suspicious charges on their credit card accounts, inquiring about repayments of past due loan amounts, soliciting donations for a non-profit organization, or offering new products for sale. In many instances, the contact center may originate calls to individuals (“targeted parties”) located in a variety of geographical areas. Frequently, the targeted party may be in another state than the state in which a contact center is located. Thus, the contact center may originate calls to targeted parties that are hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away from the contact center. Consequently, the contact center is often in a different time zone than that of the targeted party.
With that said, various regulations may limit the times when certain types of calls may be attempted to the targeted party. For example, certain federal regulations may limit the origination of telemarketing calls to between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. The time period in which calls are allowed to be placed is sometimes referred to as the “calling window.” In some instances, contact centers may define and use more restrictive calling windows. While in other instances, some states may have more restrictive calling windows than federal calling windows, including with respect to certain days.
Typically, a calling window is defined with respect to the targeted party and not with respect to the contact center. In other words, calling window times are defined as local to the targeted party. Therefore, if both the contact center and the targeted party are located in the Eastern Time Zone, then the contact center can originate a call to this targeted party at 8:30 a.m. if the applicable calling window is 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. However, if instead the contact center is located in the Eastern Time Zone and the targeted party is located in the Pacific Time Zone, then the contact center may not originate a call at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time to the targeted party because the local time for the targeted party is three hours earlier, i.e., 5:30 a.m. Pacific Time. Thus, the contact center must know the local time of the targeted party before placing a call to the targeted party to ensure compliance with the appropriate regulations defining the calling window. Accordingly, the contact center typically determines the time zone the targeted party is located in to arrive at the local time of the targeted party.
In many instances, determining the time zone the targeted party is located in can be determined once the location of the targeted party is known. However, determining the location of the targeted party may not always be a simple process. For instance, in some cases, the time zone of the targeted party can be determined by analyzing the targeted party's telephone number, but particular conditions may cause uncertainty. For example, the targeted party's telephone number may be to the party's mobile device. In this example, the targeted party lives in Chicago but is visiting friends in Los Angeles. Therefore, although the local time zone associated with the targeted party's telephone number for his mobile device is the Central Time Zone, the party is actually located in the Pacific Time Zone. Thus, if a contact center relies on the time zone associated with the targeted party's telephone number for his mobile device to identify the local time for the targeted party, then the contact center will be wrong. As a result, the contact center could potentially place a noncompliant telephone call to the targeted party's mobile device. It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure herein is presented.